Warehouses on the Teertuinen on the Prinseneiland, Amsterdam

Breitner's 'Warehouses on the Teertuinen on the Prinseneiland, Amsterdam' (1901) depicts the historic timber-trade island in the western harbours of Amsterdam, where warehouses had stored imported wood since the seventeenth-century Golden Age. By 1901 the Prinseneiland was a working industrial zone, somewhat neglected, its grandeur faded. Breitner was drawn to such places — historically resonant but unglamorous, showing the city's commercial bones. The Amsterdam Museum holds this canvas as part of its collection of Breitner's documentary Amsterdam work.

The towering warehouse facades dominate the composition, their brick surfaces rendered with textured, direct brushwork. Water in the foreground reflects the buildings in fragmented horizontal strokes. The palette is characteristic Breitner grey-brown, enlivened by the warm red of the brick and occasional touches of green in the water.